Thomas Air Compressor

[Drew Wiley]

I've had one Thomas compressor in the shop for thirty years, and bought another for the darkroom. And they are statistically fifty times more durable than those toyish made in China abominations. A lot quieter too, and less water condensation. Unfortunately, Thomas was very poor at marketing and now no longer offers either portable compressors or service parts for extant ones. They just make specialized vacuum pumps etc. But lots of the susceptible parts are basic and interchangeable with all kinds of things. The difference with most made-in-China tools is that when something breaks you just throw it away - it ain't worth fixing.
But if you're the type who thinks you are actually going to save a buck on one of those things, a plastic Holga camera would probably appeal to you too! Cheap
compressors are generally inefficient, so to up the air output they use noisy high-RPM motors. Then to keep these quiet they baffle these in plastic (like Porter
Cable does), so the unit tend to overheat. This both greatly shortens the life of the machine and creates a lot of water buildup in the tank and lines. Instead of
a line drier of the compressor, you attach the hose to a long slanted copper pipe overhead so the moist air will and condense into a collector at the lower end
(or buy a decent compressor to begin with). The amt of water collection varies with humidity and dewpoint anyway. Regardless, you should drain your tanks everyday and have a series of inline filters, right down to submicron size before air reaches your film.

[Tin Can]

Pretty much what any spray painter would also require.

Since I have no line leaks my POS Porter Cable has lasted 10 years and meets more needs than a specialized tiny thing.

What do you suggest people buy today?

I've had one Thomas compressor in the shop for thirty years, and bought another for the darkroom. And they are statistically fifty times more durable than those toyish made in China abominations. A lot quieter too, and less water condensation. Unfortunately, Thomas was very poor at marketing and now no longer offers either portable compressors or service parts for extant ones. They just make specialized vacuum pumps etc. But lots of the susceptible parts are basic and interchangeable with all kinds of things. The difference with most made-in-China tools is that when something breaks you just throw it away - it ain't worth fixing.
But if you're the type who thinks you are actually going to save a buck on one of those things, a plastic Holga camera would probably appeal to you too! Cheap
compressors are generally inefficient, so to up the air output they use noisy high-RPM motors. Then to keep these quiet they baffle these in plastic (like Porter
Cable does), so the unit tend to overheat. This both greatly shortens the life of the machine and creates a lot of water buildup in the tank and lines. Instead of
a line drier of the compressor, you attach the hose to a long slanted copper pipe overhead so the moist air will and condense into a collector at the lower end
(or buy a decent compressor to begin with). The amt of water collection varies with humidity and dewpoint anyway. Regardless, you should drain your tanks everyday and have a series of inline filters, right down to submicron size before air reaches your film.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah... sorry not to fully answer the question, but the by far the best affordable import compressor suitable for a darkroom that I've found is the RolAir JC10. It's
a little over two hundred bucks, quieter than most refrigerators, has two tandem low-RPM pumps and an efficient cooling coil. Other than a couple of units which
had a defective relief valve (easy to replace) they've been holding up fine so far for finish carpenters and lab usage. It's what I'd get; but at this point I have no
idea how it might compare to the lifespan of a Thomas tank compressor. Of course, there are all kinds of choices once you go into an oiled cast unit, but then you
get way more weight an noise. I twisted a lot of arms to get something like this in production, and alas, it does comes from China too; but this time they did a pretty
intelligent job designing and assembling it.

[Tin Can]

RolAir JC10 looks like a good compressor, I do like quiet, but at 60 db it is louder than my 52-57dB Honda EU1000i gas engine generator.

I will consider a RolAir JC10 when the Porter Cable does die.

Yeah... sorry not to fully answer the question, but the by far the best affordable import compressor suitable for a darkroom that I've found is the RolAir JC10. It's
a little over two hundred bucks, quieter than most refrigerators, has two tandem low-RPM pumps and an efficient cooling coil. Other than a couple of units which
had a defective relief valve (easy to replace) they've been holding up fine so far for finish carpenters and lab usage. It's what I'd get; but at this point I have no
idea how it might compare to the lifespan of a Thomas tank compressor. Of course, there are all kinds of choices once you go into an oiled cast unit, but then you
get way more weight an noise. I twisted a lot of arms to get something like this in production, and alas, it does comes from China too; but this time they did a pretty
intelligent job designing and assembling it.

[Drew Wiley]

It's quieter than most airbrush compressors, and just a fraction the noise of any Porter Cable. Two weeks ago I saw some big compressors being made in one of
the old bldgs where PC used to be before being dumped by B&D/Dewalt in one of their usual scorched earth corporate takeovers. The buyout and outsoucing of PC and Delta collapsed two entire counties in Tennessee, the economy shifted to meth, etc.... But with all those vacant factories and a lot of skilled labor still looking
for work in the area, it's inevitable and encouraging that new mfg are moving in and revitalizing things. Ikea also moved a big mfg facility into the neigborhood.

[Tin Can]

Believe me. I hate Chinese products and do my best to buy American whenever possible. I lost my auto tech job to Shanghai. They moved the test lab, but kept the factory here. Made no sense. Very expensive move, took 10 years. We used a lot of process water and Shanghai is considerably hotter than Chicago, forcing bigger chillers, bigger everything...

My compressor rarely runs when lightly used for photo dusting under low flow, low volume usage. I use a pencil air gun that can be adjusted to just a puff, way more controllable than cans of 'air'.

[Drew Wiley]

Yes Randy. Low pressure darkroom applications don't put stress on a compressor like commercial usage. 98% of my own products go to construction or industrial
usage, plus we repair hundreds of compressors of every description here each year, so I get a very good statistical ideal of reliability. Lots of these Sear/Depot/etc
compressors fail for construction crews anywhere within half and hour to six months of usage. The first repair will be a hundred bucks and then it will fail again a
couple months later. If that hundred bucks had been spent up front on a quality unit to begin with, their first repair would be about ten to fifteen years away.
I just don't like buying junk anything or supporting shmoozing jerks that destroy previously solid US companies just to get themselves rich with a golden parachute contract.

[Tin Can]

I was a Snap-On tool dealer for 5 years and everyone enjoyed the quality of Snap-On USA made products. I opened up an inner city ghetto route where 50% of my customers were recent immigrants and spoke little english, but they knew Snap-On was the best and demanded it.

It's great selling single pieces of quality steel, like a wrench and every sale of a complicated tool is always fraught with quality reliability issues. Snap-On and I made every attempt to sell only the best, in metal tools, compressors, jacks, tool boxes air tools, etc.

Professionals in all fields recognize the absolute necessity of tool (camera) quality and reliability. A guarantee is worthless if your tool fails when you need it.

Yes Randy. Low pressure darkroom applications don't put stress on a compressor like commercial usage. 98% of my own products go to construction or industrial
usage, plus we repair hundreds of compressors of every description here each year, so I get a very good statistical ideal of reliability. Lots of these Sear/Depot/etc
compressors fail for construction crews anywhere within half and hour to six months of usage. The first repair will be a hundred bucks and then it will fail again a
couple months later. If that hundred bucks had been spent up front on a quality unit to begin with, their first repair would be about ten to fifteen years away.
I just don't like buying junk anything or supporting shmoozing jerks that destroy previously solid US companies just to get themselves rich with a golden parachute contract.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah ... It's amazing. Everybody out there is trying to make money on low-quality cheapo outsourced crap. I do the opposite, sell only the best you can get, and
have so much damn business that I have to have two or three trucks of equip in transit from a mfg at any given time. And the immigrants want to get ahead fast,
work hard, and buy the best of the best. Meanwhile, startup US manufacturers can't even find enough skilled help in this country. Every kid thinks he gonna become
Mark Zuckerburg is he refuses a hands-on trade and just plays computer games. "Jobs of the future" they call it - but most of those already left for India or
Bangledesh as the jobs of yesterday. Welcome to WalMart.

[Micke_Sahil]

So, I just picked one up the other day. Tired of spending money for cans of compressed air. So far, pretty cool. Does anyone else use one of these??

Yes I used Ridetech 31920002 Thomas Air Compressor. and i found All good, on time.